CRDL: Favors for Sky
by I Own A Clock
Summary: Sky Lark was, objectively, the worst member of Team CRDL. He was weak, bad at fighting, and a moron all around. But his team's finally had enough. They're going to go all out, and call in ALL the favors they've earned. One way or another, Sky Lark was going to become as good as a professional Hunter. Even if it means he has to go through lectures, bloody noses, and electrocution.


"Sky, we need to talk."

Sky Lark sat up from his bed to find the rest of Team CRDL surrounding it. _Um… What?_

His team leader, Cardin, looked annoyed. Russell looked furious. Dove looked disappointed. And all three of them were staring at him.

"... About what?" Sky reluctantly asked. What could this be about? Normally it was impossible to get the whole team together like this. _It must be important._

"This has been a long time coming," Cardin began slowly, looking at the two standing beside him for support, "but we've all come together and decided you'd probably not figure it out if we didn't say anything."

" _A long time coming", huh? "We need to talk"? What wouldn't I figure out on my own? I've heard all this before, but- oh. Ooooooh…_ "Right, I'm sorry, guys, but… I'm only interested in girls. Sorry." That comment was met by silence. The three other members of Team CRDL just stared at him. "What? You didn't know that already?"

Cardin sighed before continuing, "You know what? I'm glad you said that. It's actually pretty relevant to what we have to tell you. Sky, I hate to say it, but you're an-"

"Incredibly handsome, I know, but-"

"- Idiot." Cardin finished.

"You're a useless moron," Dove followed up.

"How did you even get in this school?!" Russel shot out.

"Wh- What?" Sky didn't know how to react. Idiot? Useless moron?! He was at Beacon, he couldn't be useless if he went to this school! "What do you mean?! I'm not useless!"

"Sky, you haven't won a _single_ fight the whole year." Cardin growled, annoyed.

"That doesn't mean I'm a bad fighter, that just means everyone else-"

" _Jaune_ has more wins than you, Sky." Cardin leaned in closer, before shouting in his face, " _JAUNE!_ Do you know how god damn embarrassing it is to hear other people get cheered up from losing with, 'at least you're still better than Sky'?!"

"I'm just not good against Hunters, that's all, I'm better against Grimm!" Sky pleaded.

"No, you're not." Dove sighed. "Name _one_ time you killed a Grimm, Sky."

"Back in initiation, remember?! I shot a Beowolf!"

"No, I was there, remember?!" Russel called out. "You missed the Beowolf you were aiming for, and you _accidentally_ hit one behind it!"

"But I still shot it!" And that was something none of them could take from Sky.

" _I WAS THE ONE WHO STILL HAD TO KILL IT!_ " _Oh yeah. Forgot about that._ _Yeesh, no need to scream._

"Well, I mean, we don't really go out on many missions, so-"

"On top of all that, you've got worse grades than _all_ of us, Sky!" Cardin interrupted, preventing Sky from properly making his point. _They're all just ganging up on me, this isn't fair!_

"Hey, no one here has great grades either, so I don't think it's-"

"F's all across the board, Sky! You aren't passing a single class! You're making us all look like morons, Sky!"

"Morons who can't fight!" Russel was quick to chime in. "In a _SCHOOL_ for _HUNTERS!_ "

… Sky didn't know how to respond. Was he really an idiot? Had he really been oblivious to the fact that he was a "useless moron"? Wha- What could he do about that? "I… really? I'm an idiot?"

"YES!" Cardin screamed at him.

"No shit!" Russel also called out.

"Oh my god..." Dove had to turn away.

"I didn't know!" Why didn't anyone say anything about it?! If Sky had known that he was an idiot, he would have done something about it! ... Probably.

"I really don't want to do this, Sky, but it doesn't look like we have any other choice." Cardin put his hand on Sky's shoulder. _Oh no. This is it. I'm about to get kicked out of CRDL. They're gonna transfer in that Lie guy from JNPR, just like I always knew they would!_ "We're gonna have to start calling in some of our favors."

"...Huh?" Sky looked up into Cardin's eyes. "You're not kicking me out of the team?"

"Oh my god...!" Dove growled as he left the room, having finally had enough of his moron teammate and his questions.

Cardin, on the other hand, just gave Sky a blank look. "Sky, if we could do that, we already would have." _Ouch._ "But since we aren't able to kick you out, we're going to make you better."

"But none of you are ever free to train, so-"

"SO!" Cardin interrupted again. "We're not going to be the ones training you. We're too low of a bar to make you get any better." Cardin looked really annoyed admitting that CRDL wasn't as good as some of the other teams at Beacon. "That's why we're calling in some of the favors people owe us."

"You mean..."

"Yep. You're going to be training with the best of the best. Because lucky for us, or more specifically lucky for _you_ , the best of the best owe us."

* * *

Team CRDL, in spite of the fact that they were merely first year students at Beacon, were already well known throughout all of Vale, and especially throughout all of Beacon. They were known as three things: racists (although that was really just one event blown hilariously out of proportion), morons (thanks almost exclusively to their most moronic team mate), and everyone's "friends".

The team wasn't everyone's friends, the kind of friend that you invited over to hang out with or just liked being around. No, they were everyone's "friends", the kind of "friend" that you called whenever you needed a piano lifted up a flight of stairs, or whenever you needed help hiding a dead body. But they would still held anyone, no matter who it was. A fool might assume that the reason they chose to be helpful was out of the goodness of their racist, moronic hearts. But no, they all had a reason for helping when they did.

If CRDL helped you, then you owed CRDL a favor.

For the most part, CRDL didn't actually collect on their favors, and when they did it was, usually, for small stuff. "I carried you to the hospital when your leg exploded: I'm calling in my favor: I want this meal for free." As such, no one actually felt any reluctance to ask them for help.

CRDL was uncharacteristically professional about their favors, they did what was asked of them almost to the letter, and they generally kept the favors secret from the people around them: no one but CRDL knew where all the Schnee Dust Company employees that had attended Weiss Schnee's birthday party had gone, and all that CRDL would tell you about the situation was that they got some pretty slick watches out of the deal. But if you didn't pay up when CRDL came knocking, then suddenly EVERYONE knew your little secret.

But now: now they needed to call in their favors: Sky Lark, the useless, grey haired idiot of Team CRDL, was about to become a lot less useless.

* * *

 **Hey, it's me: I Own a Clock.**

 **Felt like writing a short little story. I'm still working on all of the other stories as well, but I'm having a bit of trouble getting a solid tone down. Having trouble deciding whether to go humorous or full seriousness. And then you get the grey areas in the middle, which leads to some serious mood whiplash. Ugh.**

 **Which is a big part of why this story exists: there's no way that I'm going to make the story of Team CRDL calling in favors throughout Beacon a serious story. I CAN'T screw up the tone here.**

 **Anyways, I'd appreciate hearing what you think of this, even though, at the moment, it's nothing but setup. Probably should have included them calling in one favor this chapter, but future chapters will be a lot longer than this, I promise. This is all just setup, I swear.**

 **... Also, if you could think of a better title for this, I'd be eternally grateful. You know, just saying.**


End file.
